


Never Laugh At Live Dragons

by oneiriad



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7914133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/pseuds/oneiriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m a dragon, Len.”</p>
<p>“A dragon?” and then Len starts to laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Laugh At Live Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to JRR Tolkien and Bilbo Baggins for the title

In the end, Mick supposes, it was because of the fire.

Oh, not the first fire - the fire that allowed him to hatch, to become what he was even as it took the lives of each and every member of his family. Not that one, no - the fire so many years later, when he’d forgotten himself during a heist, forgotten that his human form was not nearly as impervious to fire as his real one.

At least he’d still recovered far better than any human - just as well, since he’d never bothered with letting them take him to hospital for treatment. Still, he used to have ambivalent fealings about that fire - sure, it gave him an outside for people to see, a visual reminder of the fire inside of him. But it also cost him so many months of Len’s absence.

At least Len came back for him. Eventually. And with such a lovely present.

Still, in the end, it goes back to the fire.

And it goes - more recently - back to the fucking Commies. Words his father used to use, discussing the news with his mother, back in the before, and which he certainly never expected to have cause to use himself.

Of course, he never expected to go time travelling and end up tortured in an actual fucking gulag either. And sure, Haircut had gotten the worst of it, the idiot, but it’s not like they’d completely ignored Mick either.

Which is why he’s sitting in the cargo bay of the Waverider, which is currently parked in the back of beyond Siberia a couple of years before the Tunguska event, while Rip and Jax are working at fixing some murmur the engines developed after their little jaunt to Star City. Which is why he’s sitting in the cargo bay, doing his usual maintenance of the heat gun and scratching idly at the just-starting-to-heal burns from where the Russkies had had their fun playing with electricity.

His shirt's in a sad pile at his feet. He expects to be able to hear anybody approaching soon to have time to put it back on. In hindsight, he should have just asked Gideon to warn him if anybody was approaching the cargo bay - except of course, Gideon might have wanted some sort of explanation. Or might have told Rip, who might have wanted an explanation.

Which is beside the point, because at one point Mick looks up and Len is right there.

Staring.

Straight at Mick’s chest.

At the bloody scratch marks and the neat little pile of gleaming silvery flecks he’s mostly wiped off on the rag lying next to him on the bench.

And at the couple of scales still stubbornly clinging to his healing hurts.

Because sure, there are better ways to do this and certainly better tools than his sharp nails, but needs must and he has no desire to risk anybody seeing - and he really had had rather specific plans involving Len and himself getting naked. Later. Once he’d fixed this.

“Mick?” and Len’s heads tilted in that way he has, eyes narrowed and he’s not even bothering turning it into an actual question, because Mick’s not stupid, and really what other question could it be?

And the thing is, he’s wanted to tell Len so many times - not at first, not when they met in juvie, because really, it was bad enough being a pyromaniac criminal without people thinking he was a fucking lunatic on top. But later, after juvie, after he and Len became partners, he’s wanted to share this and shied away each and every time because he didn’t want to risk Len looking at him like he'd finally lost it, if Mick were to tell him:

“I’m a dragon, Len.”

“A dragon?”

“Yeah,” and he steels himself for whatever’s about to happen - Len calling him crazy, Len asking a thousand questions, Len dragging him off to have Gideon check him for whatever venereal disease he might have picked up in Star City.

He thinks he’s ready for anything Len might do.

And then Len starts to laugh.

At first it’s just a snigger, that tiny, familiar noise that only Mick and Lisa ever get to hear, and then it grows into an actual laugh, Len reaching out to support himself against a crate.

What the fuck?

Of all the ways he'd expected Len to react - disbelief, anger - this sure as hell wasn’t one of them. Actually, how dare he? Mick just told him the biggest secret in his entire fucking life, the one thing he’s never told any living non-draconic soul, and his partner’s laughing at him. Fucking laughing at him, as if a pyromaniac dragon is the best joke he’s ever heard.

Mick stands and shoulders Len aside, touching the control panel to open the cargo doors. A blast of Siberian winter air welcomes him to the outside.

“Mick, wait a minute!” but Mick ignores him and his still-laughing voice and starts running as he moves down the ramp.

Starts stretching - “Mick, damnit!” - and unfurling his wings.

The ground falls away beneath him, the Waverider and Len and the trees around them fading to the size of ants.

Mick doesn’t actually care which way he’s flying. It doesn’t matter. He’s taken to the air a long time before radar or other modern annoyances - nobody’ll know if a 30 tons mythic beast is roaring his rage out into the winter skies above Siberia, and nobody except perhaps some nomads will notice his flames - and they’ll probably just think them shooting stars.

Mick flies and rages.

Perhaps hours pass. He kinda loses track of time.

When he’s finally cooled off a bit, he starts circling above a convenient reindeer herd. They’re looking nice and juicy, just right for a bit of improvised barbecue - and he could use a snack before trying to find his way back to the Waverider and face the music there. Damn, but they must have all seen him - Gideon must have recorded the change, the frankly grotesque sight of wings ripping lose from his body and the tail sliding out his arse like some fucked up stallion's dick sliding from its sheath.

That music’s going to be an entire fucking orchestra, isn’t it?

Twin roars make him look up from the herd, dragging him back from his dark thoughts to start cursing himself. Damnit, Mick, you fucking idiot. Of course this is somebody’s territory! Of course it is! Middle of nowhere with plenty of hunting? Of course there’s already a dragon that calls it home.

And nothing on God’s green earth is as territorial as a dragon.

Sure, there are exceptions - like that brief period after hatching, when the new dragon can be spotted by any other, even in its human form. In fact, they draw other dragons like catnip draws cats during that time - dragons, that for just this once didn't feel like trying to kill you on sight.

“Pheromones,” one she-dragon had told him, “at least that’s the best guess anybody’s ever made, to the best of my knowledge. It’s not like we’re scientists, kid.”

Pheromones or not, those few months gave you a chance to learn a thing or two about actually being a dragon, since everything else was just race memory that just blossomed up when you hatched - and really, it’s not like knowing stuff like the fact that pregnant she-dragons had developed a trick of laying their eggs in dead fetuses, like the world’s most fucked-up cuckoos to hide among the ever-rising number of clever little apes, had much practical use. He was grateful for those few months and the more practical things he’d learned.

Like the fact that, apart from newly hatcheds, the only other time a dragon will willingly share its territory is if it’s a mated pair.

Like the pair that’s bearing down on him right now.

They seem a bit smaller than him, dark grey like storm clouds and crackling with lightning, and he knows he’s screwed. Well and truly and not in anything remotely resembling a good way.

And the fuckers are fast - wide wings and smaller weight. He’d never be able to outfly them, even if he wasn’t already tired, and two against one? He’ll never have a chance at outfighting them. If he was in a populated area, he could land and shift and run into a building - dragons can’t spot each other in human form, after all, and just as well considering most major cities harbour a dozen or more. The territorial fights would end any pretence at secrecy pretty quickly.

But nevermind that, because the point is, he’s stuck. Nowhere to run and there’s no way he’s coming out of this in one piece, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to submit to these two assholes. Submit and let them tear at his wings and bite at his throat and let the male fuck him until he bleeds.

Fucking animalistic instincts and fucking dragon dominance displays.

Which is why he meets them with a roar and a flame that’s not nearly as hot as his gun’s. Not that that’s going to change the ultimate outcome, but at least it’ll cost them.

The pair of them split as they approach him, circling him like winged wolves, testing the range of their lightning and his flame. He picks the bigger one, presumably the she-dragon, and tries to catch her, talons and teeth reaching for her scaly skin.

This close, he can see old battle scars against her scales, white lightning marks of pride from older battles.

She dives away from his talons just as he’s about to close them around one shoulder joint, and next thing there’s a burning sensation across his lower back as the male closes, tearing at his skin. He turns, roars a jet of flame, but the bastard dodges, while the female twists her dive into an attack, snapping her jaws closed around his tail and pulling hard enough that his wing beats lose their rhythm and his bulk starts dragging him down until he catches himself.

Like he said, he is so, so screwed.

At first he doesn’t pay attention to the roar, assuming it’s just whichever of his opponents that isn’t currently busy trying to rip his wing off with its teeth - he’s lost track, he admits it, sometime around the tenth switch between the two. It’s pretty obvious they’ve done this before as a team, as partners and mates, as well choreographed as he and Len during a heist, and it fucking sucks to be on the receiving end of it.

So, at first he doesn’t pay attention to the roar.

Except then his two attackers disengage and whirl around, and Mick looks up to realize that they’ve got company.

The new dragon is fricking huge. 50 tons, at least, and long, serpentine, slicing through the air like a fucking undulating jet, roaring a challenge as it draws closer.

The storm clouds whirl to face it, but he'll be damned if he’s going to let these fuckers just drop him and go after this guy, even if Mick’s probably a pretty sorry sight and not exactly flying at his most steady right now. From somewhere, who the fuck knows where, he finds the strength for one last burst of speed, pouncing on the back of the male and tangling their wings together, using his weight to force them to crash into the snow covered ground.

Above him, the female screeches in pain and her sizzling blood rains down on the pristine snow.

Below him, the male manages to wriggle free, slashing at his snout and making its way into the air before he can close his jaws around its tail - but instead of joining its mate, the male starts flying away. Mick watches as the female notices and takes the hint, disengaging from the new dragon and rapidly putting distance between them.

Apparently, the new one can’t be bothered to give chase. Instead it circles, landing far too close for Mick’s tastes. Because really, he’s just as screwed now as he was before - the storm clouds have left him in a sorry state, and apart from a couple of scratches across his forelegs, red against blue so dark it’s almost black, the new guy’s barely hurt.

Actually, judging by this guy’s size and length compared to the storm cloud male’s, Mick’s probably considerably more screwed.

Literally.

Well, fuck that. He wasn’t taking it lying down from those assholes and he’s not taking it lying down from this one.

He bares his teeth in a snarl, pushing himself up and spreading his wings, trying to ignore how one them hangs a bit wrong. Lashing his tail like an angry cat and spreading the stupid scarlet ruff around his throat.

Trying to make himself look bigger and nastier, like too much to swallow, because it’s instinct, even though both he and new-guy know better.

And then the new guy darts up to him - and smacks his snout with his wing.

Mick rocks back on his haunches, blinking in surprise as the other guy curls himself into a neat snake-like pile of serpentine body, folding his wings and glaring at Mick like he’s an idiot.

There’s something strangely familiar about that expression - which is pretty impressive, actually, because dragon faces suck at expressions. The same way that dragon mouths suck at talking. Supposedly there was a dragon language once upon a time, before the Great Hiding and the she-dragons learning their new trick, but apparently that wasn’t deemed important enough for race memory, and all Mick knows of it is a couple of words from a particularly nasty he-dragon he had met when he had almost stopped giving off the pheromones.

He’s pretty sure most of the words he knows basically translates to 'fuck'.

And dragon mouths are really not geared to English. This is real life, after all, not some stupid motion-capture blockbuster.

Dragon mouths are really not cut out for human words. But some noises are close enough, just barely.

And so Mick manages to growl out an incredulous “Snart?!”

The other dragon - wait, no, Len! It’s fucking Len! How the fuck is it Len?! - huffs, as if it’s distinctly unimpressed with Mick. Then it slides forward, slowly, and nudges at his shoulder, inspecting the nasty, jagged bite at the root of his wing, and Mick just lets him, lets him lick at the blood and whine at him.

In fact, Mick kinda droops, lets his wings dangle and ending up leaning pretty inelegantly against Len’s side, while cursing all the questions he can’t ask right now - fucking ancestor dragons and their fucked up race memory priorities - questions about how the hell, Len? How long? When? How did I not notice?

But there’ll be time for those questions later. Right now? Right now Mick’s partner - wait, no, not partner, Len’s a fucking dragon, right? Mick’s _mate_ \- is nosing him over, making unhappy noises about the injuries the two assholes left him with.

And maybe Mick’s a pretty fucked-up dragon, but right now, he’s pretty okay with just letting him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hamelin-born, who wanted Coldwave, "They're both dragons". Because apparently this fandom has a thing about dragons...


End file.
